


Friday is Date Night

by RedBlazer



Series: San Junipero [1]
Category: Black Mirror, Captain America (Movies), Marvel Cinematic Universe
Genre: Bittersweet, Black Mirror - Freeform, Dancing, F/M, Happy Ending, Kinda, Post-Captain America: The First Avenger, Pre-Serum Steve Rogers, San Junipero, Steve Rogers Feels, Steve Rogers Needs a Hug, Time Travel Fix-It
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-10-31
Updated: 2016-10-31
Packaged: 2018-08-28 06:38:19
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,428
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/8435374
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/RedBlazer/pseuds/RedBlazer
Summary: It starts, like so many things do, with Peggy,
Peggy whose skin looks like paper that’s been folded over and over for the course of a lifetime. He can’t take the thought of stepping through the hospital door to her room to speak with her. So instead he peeks through on his way down the hallway. He doesn’t want to shock her too much, not when he finds out she’s going through dementia and sometimes she wakes up not knowing where she is.
But she’s passing through San Junipero, all of this information obtained from any number of documents Tony shouldn’t have access to. But at this point Steve is desperate.
And isn’t that how this all began in the first place? He was a scared kid in Brooklyn. His best friend was leaving for the war front. Now he’s coping with a world that’s passed him by and if he lets anyone see a bit of it, it’ll all come crashing down.-----The San Junipero AU literally no one asked for.





	

**Author's Note:**

> Blame my brain at two in the morning last night. There might be more at some point, but for now this is it. There are spoilers for the San Junipero episode of Black Mirror in this. It is the GREATEST episode of television to ever take place, breaks my heart, puts it back together, and I cry all the time about it. So you should watch it if you can. You don't have to watch it to understand the fic. But you should because the episode is crazy amazing.

It starts, like so many things do, with Peggy,

Peggy whose skin looks like paper that’s been folded over and over for the course of a lifetime. He can’t take the thought of stepping through the hospital door to her room to speak with her. So instead he peeks through on his way down the hallway. He doesn’t want to shock her too much, not when he finds out she’s going through dementia and sometimes she wakes up not knowing where she is.

But she’s passing through San Junipero, all of this information obtained from any number of documents Tony shouldn’t have access to. But at this point Steve is desperate.

And isn’t that how this all began in the first place? He was a scared kid in Brooklyn. His best friend was leaving for the war front. Now he’s coping with a world that’s passed him by and if he lets anyone see a bit of it, it’ll all come crashing down.

But San Junipero, that’s where it could turn around. Because if she’s there she’ll remember him. He doesn’t know how that’s possible. But it’s one of the promotional lines Steve’s heard hundreds of times since he woke up in this place. 

Tony is the one who blew a billion dollars on the technology to recall memory and live in it again. And when The Great Generation came calling for the technology, Tony adapted it. A perfect town in any decade a person could want. And within it, a population of the dying uploaded to the cloud.

The original San Junipero server was purely for vacationers and not permanent residents. There was no way to ensure what would happen when the folks died, but they signed anything Tony put in front of them just to make the pain go away for a while, to walk through the world and be young and beautiful again.

He billed the whole thing as the kindest thing to ever happen to senior care. And people lined up by the thousands to take part. So for five hours a week each person was hooked up to the system, they set their pain sliders, and went in. It’s supposed to be so realistic that people forget they’re not in the real world. And that’s why the government decided they had to ration it out. Too much of a good thing, grandma forgets that in the real world she can’t crash her car and survive and the world has a crisis on its hands. A group of thousands who don’t know their own limits, who long for a world that exists in ones and zeroes, their consciousness uploaded to a server farm underground somewhere in Nevada.

But then Tony conquered death too. And he didn’t even charge for it. Forget about heaven, something even Steve with his wavering faith couldn’t pin down, San Junipero was definite. It worked, and if you stayed there. It would be forever. You didn’t have to be good or bad, count your sins and pray you would get in. Everyone got in. That was it.

Tony carved out a bit of immortality by way of accident. But wasn’t that always the case?

The crazy thing is that Tony doesn’t even look surprised when Steve walks into the lab and tells him he needs an uplink to server 115692. No, instead he raps his knuckle against the workbench a few times in a row and nods his head tightly.

“Five hours, no more. No less. Same as she gets.” Tony tells him. “And I can only let you in because you make the age requirement.”

Steve’s jaw tightens at the words. He didn’t ask for any of this. But he doesn’t want to upset the balance. So instead he says, “Friday.”

And then he leaves.

\----------

Friday is date night for teenage couples across America and in every retirement home across the country. Girls turn this way and that before the mirror and old women wait with a flutter in their chests as their attendants gather with their uplinks and remotes.

Because it’s time to go out.

Or rather in.

Tony makes Steve stay in the lab that night. Something about liability and monitoring his vitals.

“It’ll feel real. So real that you’re going to have to remind yourself that it isn’t.” Tony tells him, taking Steve’s pulse while Steve gets situated on a couch that Tony had to shove about a decade worth of magazines off of. He pulls a remote out of his pocket, indicating a few things, “Countdown is automatically set for five hours, pain slider—I’ll go ahead and set that for zero, people have a habit of testing that within the first hour. Pick your decade here.”

Steve looks down at the remote once Tony hands it to him. There’s a set of arrows going up and down and a small window indicating the time. Steve clicks until he likes what he sees. Tony once again shows not an ounce of surprise.

“Not one of our more popular decades. You should see the 1970s. I had to put in a Woodstock and three more square miles of land just to fit everyone.” Tony says. “Tonight, I’d say just get your feet wet. And stay out of the Quagmire.”

Steve’s eyebrows furrow together, “What’s the Quagmire?”

Tony sighs, “It was an inedibility.” Then his watch beeps, signaling that it’s 7 p.m. it’s time to go in. “Don’t worry about it. I’ll see you at midnight, Cinderella.”

He presses a small white disk to the side of Steve’s temple and a small buzzing sound echoes though his brain. Steve’s thumb circles the white button on the center of the remote, his stomach clenching in the kind of nervous excitement he hasn’t felt in decades.

He’s going back.

Steve depresses the button and immediately feels himself slipping away. He goes from laying down to standing in front of a mirror in a small, tidy bedroom. Steve’s lungs take in a gasp at what’s standing before him. They’re familiar hands, feet, arms, legs, eyes, ears, nose, and mouth. But their configuration isn’t the same. If he’s being sent back to what it was like to be happy, there’s been some kind of mistake.

This body brought him nothing but pain for 20 years.

This must be Tony’s idea of a joke.

Steve’s back where he started, in the body of a sickly young man who couldn’t make it in the military, couldn’t support himself. He was weak and scared a lot of the time back then. There were high points, Bucky springs to mind. But also bitterly cold winters, ones where they burned their own bed stands and slept on the ground on a matress in front of the stove to keep warm. Steve would wake up freezing, his chest heavy with damp.

He hates that he looks like this, his face flushing in humiliation. He wanted it to be better. To be different. But he’s the kid with the bad haircut and pants that were always too long.

He and Tony are going to have words when he gets back.

For now he checks his watch, five minutes gone already.

Steve walks to the window and looks out, there’s a street below, and dozens of well dressed people all headed towards a speakeasy on the corner. There’s no sign above the iron door with its tiny window, but Steve’s been inside of enough of them with Bucky to know one when he sees one.

Figuring he doesn’t need keys, Steve leaves the apartment with nothing but a growing sense of urgency. He heads down the steps that lead to a door between two businesses; a radio shop and a small diner.

The sound is what gets him first. Jazz and big band music coming from a few different places seemingly all at once. People shouting over each other on the street with excitement. Steve presses his back to his own door and stares out at all of it.

There’s no pain in his chest, no aching in his joints and when he presses a hand to his good ear, he can hear perfectly out of the other. To be here in this time and place, feeling none of the discomfort that was his main companion for so many years makes his head spin.

He makes eye contact with a pretty girl in a red dress, her nails done to match and she smiles at him.

“This your first time, sweetie?” she asks him. Her eyes are huge and green in a pale face. She’s the kind of girl Bucky took home.

Steve nods tightly. He should be carefree in this moment. Instead he feels like he’s going to vomit.

She stops walking, a few feet away from him. “I’m Margot. I’m heading to Tucker’s, why don’t you come with me.”

Steve makes himself step away from the door. Margot looks him up and down. He doesn’t look as tidy as most of the people around them, dressed in their finest suits and dresses.

“They didn’t tell you about your closet.” Margot says knowingly.

“Should I—?” Steve says, motioning to the door vaguely.

Margot leans forward and takes his hand in hers. “No, I like it. You’ve got character. Everyone else is dressed in the clothes they couldn’t afford back them. Or now I guess. Myself included. I mooned over this dress in the window of Macy’s for an entire year.” She pulls him along as she talks. It’s comforting, reminds him of when Bucky would arrive home and tell him in no uncertain terms where they would have to go that night.

When she gets to the door, she raps on it three times in quick succession. A small window in the door slides back and two brown eyes appear in the space. “Tebula rasa.” Margot says to the man, and the door opens to them. “There’s no police here of course, no prohibition, but we like to reminisce.”

Steve’s instantly assaulted by the sight and sound of what has to been hundreds of people packed into a large dance hall. There’s a brass band up against the back wall, and so many couples twirling and stepping together they look like confetti. A long, wooden bar stretches across the whole side of the room, a mirror behind it. It really does look exactly like one of the clubs he’s been to. Of course one as big as this would have been shut down and relocated within months, but it’s comforting all the same.

Margot drags him to the bar where a man in white shirtsleeves and suspenders greets her, “Margot. Lovely as always, what can I get for you and your friend?”

She smirks, pulling the red line of her lips to the side as she does it. “Two gin and tonics, John.” Margot doesn’t give him the option of ordering for himself, which is probably a blessing because he’s overwhelmed by it all.

“Here we go.” She tells him, handing him a cold glass that smells of pine needles and lime. They never would have had ice back in the day, but Steve doesn’t think he needs the authenticity of lukewarm alcohol. She takes him by the arm and starts leading him through the fray of the dancers, toward a cluster of booths set into the wall as well as some tables and chairs.

Steve looks down at her hand in his, sees his watch. Half an hour gone. “Thanks for all of this! But I need to get going. I have to find my friend!” 

“I want to introduce you to someone. It’ll take a minute.” Margot tells him, tugging him along with surprising strength.

There’s a gorgeous girl sitting at a table nursing a whiskey. Her curly hair is piled on top of her head, her skin is the color of toffee Steve used to get at the boardwalk when he could spring for it. When she sees Margot, she jumps up and rushes to her.

“Mimi.” The new girl cries, tugging Margot into her arms and crushing her with a hug. Margot’s eyes close and she relaxes into her embrace.

“Ray.” She says it like it’s the last word of a prayer.

They pull apart eventually, leaving Steve stand there. In the back of his mind he knows he should get going, but he thinks he owes Margot this.

“Rachel, this is my friend. It’s his first night. And I’m only realizing now that I don’t know his name.” Margot says, gesturing towards Steve with the hand she has a drink in.

“Steve.” He tells them, flushing again.

“Nice to meet you Steve,” Rachel says fondly. She looks over at Margot. “You love to find strays, don’t you.”

Margot rolls her eyes in a familiar way and presses her forehead to Rachel’s. “Worked with you, didn’t it.”

Rachel huffs, shaking her head in a fond, play annoyed way. “Sure did.”

“We were Red Cross nurses in the European Theater during the war.” Margot says, “We were married last August.”

Steve can’t tell them anything about the war from his side. It would only bring up Bucky and right now he’s got other things on his mind. So instead he only says, “Congratulations.”

“Thanks.” Margot beams over at her wife like they’ve been together for weeks and not the better part of a century. “Oh! Steve, you’re looking for someone. Ray might know them, she’s a full-time resident.”

Oh.

Oh shit.

Steve’s eyes must go wide while his heart stutter-stops. It’s one thing to know in theory many of these people are dead and buried and quite another to have one standing before you.

“It’s okay, sweetie.” Rachel says, extending an arm. She motions to the chair nearest. “Have a seat. Tell me about your friend.”

Steve downs about half of his drink in one go once he sits down. Rachel and Margot take two seats across from him, their chairs so close they could be sharing one between them. He shouldn’t be cutting into their time together if Margot is still alive somewhere. She only has five hours with her wife every week.

“Her name is Peggy Carter.” Steve says, rolling the glass between his hands absently. Rachel raises an eyebrow knowingly. “Brunet, pretty—but really smart, brown eyes.”

“Khaki uniform? Perfect hair?” Rachel asks, the left side of her mouth curling upwards.

Steve’s stomach drops out of his body. “Yeah.”

Rachel points a perfectly lacquered finger over his shoulder. And it’s can’t be this easy. His shoulders tense, all of the hair on his arms stands on end. Steve vaguely remembers he should check if his tie is straight, that the cuffs of his shirt are tidy. He pushes his hair away from his face, hating that one long lock at the front that seems to grow at twice the rate of all the rest of the hair on his head.

He doesn’t think his heart has ever beaten as fast as it is right now. Even with the invasion in New York City and waking up in modern times. Right now he feels like he’s about to head into battle.

“Steve, you gotta breathe.” Margot says, smiling widely.

What if she doesn’t want to see him? Especially like this, all gangly arms and legs, elbows and knees sharp points sticking out under his suit.

Well. There’s only one thing to do.

He can’t really speak, so he nods tightly at the two women who seem to understand what’s going on here. Steve swallows around the lump in his throat and stands.

In a flurry of women in bright colors, Peggy is the first thing his eyes land on. Her pressed khaki skirt, perfect white blouse, and jacket shown in relief against a background of swirling color of women’s clothing. Her impeccable red lipstick is a touch lighter than all of the other women in the room. The brown of her eyes like liquid as she smiles widely, throwing her head back in laughter. There are smile lines around the corners of her eyes that appeared every so often when Steve knew her. You really had to earn them. Now that she’s untethered from a worn out and failing body, she looks almost like she’s floating.

She’s dancing with a man, he’s tall and handsome, dressed in a fine navy blue suit with every button gleaming even in the low lighting. Peggy moves in his arms with trust, letting him lead her through the steps and spins of the high energy music pumping louder and louder through the room.

Steve’s hands clench at his sides seeing her. This is what San Junipero is supposed to be, a getaway, a party town where its residents can enjoy their remaining time on this planet. But he still wasn’t prepared to see her so—young looking.

Even during the war, he knew she was young. They were roughly the same age. But by the time they met, she’d seen so much of what was happening. She was wise beyond her years. Now she’s being lead around the dance floor with nothing else on her mind. Maybe he made a mistake coming here. What if this throws a wrench into her vacation and drums up too many years of pain and suffering. After all, Steve was the one who disappeared.

He stands there like a statue in a room full of movement until the song ends. Peggy and the man part, hugging like old friends before the man goes looking for another partner.

It’s now or never.

Steve’s the guy who jumps. He has to remind himself that. He’s the one who takes the risks no matter the cost, and hasn’t he paid the price for all of that? Doesn’t he deserve one thing?

Doesn’t he get his dance?

He crosses the dance floor in a blur, feet moving in a sure way that never happened when he was in this body the first time.

He asks her, makes his voice work somehow.

“Ma’am, I believe you owe me a dance.” Steve says over the din of the band striking up a slow, jazzy number.

Peggy spins around like he’s seen her do a million times. But she used to have a gun in her hand when she did that. Now when her body pivots towards his, she’s confused and her perfect eyes are already filling with tears.

He doesn’t let her get the words out, just wraps her up in his arms and holds her there while they’re both shaking. Her fingers cut into the circulation of his arms as she clutches to him like if there’s a single atom between them, they’ll break apart and fly towards opposite sides of the universe.

That might very well be true.

There are people all around them holding each other close and swaying to the beat, but he and Peggy are content to stand there with their hearts beating a swift rhythm of its own.

They’re the same height now. Well Steve’s an inch shorter if he’s being honest with himself. It makes the kiss she plants on him easy as anything.

“I had to do that before you disappear again.” She says, and he missed that voice even if now it’s soaked in raspy emotion. 

They hold each other close until the song is over, and the next one even though it’s a fast one.

Eventually they can part enough to do it properly, Steve holds her to him with an arm around her waist and her hand on his shoulder. They clasp hands, moving and dipping to the music.

And the best part isn’t even that they have a whole four hours together, that she trusts him enough to spin out in his arms and return like she’s in his orbit, or that smile is plastered on both of their faces. The stupid smile that when you see on others looks fake, but when you do it yourself, is an expression of pure joy.

The best part is that for those hours he forgets about all of it. Their separation or his time under the ice. For those hours they’re two dumb kids moving in time to the music without a care in the world. He feels so happy.

And when he wakes up at midnight, he’s looking forward to the something for the first time since he arrived in the present.

Friday.

For one perfect year, he and Peggy get date night every Friday.

**Author's Note:**

> Thanks for reading! I love kudos and comments!


End file.
